Issues bordering on national security must be tackled with decorum and circumspection.
In police states, ours not one of them anyway, references to issues which have the semblance of threatening national security prompt swift reaction from the state.
While we do not cherish situations where the media is gagged, we fret however when discussions tend to expose our national security flanks thereby weakening them to allow for enemy infiltration.
Our democracy is growing and, in our excitement as we tread the path of this world-acclaimed governance module, we sometimes tend to go overboard.
Critiquing policies and conducts of especially those holding critical national positions should never be compromised but rather supported to flourish.
Last week, we noticed the return of the issue of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping allowances. The subject has reincarnated from its deathbed. In 2017, it made the headline as government was cast in bad light because erroneous reports at the time pointed at soldiers on peacekeeping missions being shortchanged.
A political commentator last week put out figures pertaining to the UN peacekeeping allowances, the bottom-line of which was no different from what was bandied about in 2017.
Another worrying detail from the commentator’s claim was that soldiers are paying to be considered for UN assignments. The tendency for such unsubstantiated claim to incite soldiers cannot be underestimated.
What is worrying about the subject under review is that ‘Restricted’ literature are being let out with an unusual recklessness.
We are not seeking to protect the Ghana Armed Forces from public scrutiny. The military is a state asset and so should be reprimanded when its actions do not conform to acceptable practices.
While critiquing the military, those doing so should be guided by the fact that as guards of our territorial integrity and sometimes internal security in supportive role to the civilian police, we should be measured in our language when dealing with their issues.
In a social media age, it is near impossible to stop young soldiers, IT savvy as they are, from letting out restricted information as it were.
Such soldiers and those they send restricted literature to must consider the national interest as paramount and to cease perpetuating the practice.
It is not about the top hierarchy of the military establishment in this matter but the national security. The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) and Service Commanders will play their parts, and like their predecessors, depart the scene one day for others to continue. We all have a country to preserve and we should remember that inciting young soldiers through the dissemination of false information does not inure to the national interest.
It is for good reason that some information are restricted and not let out on the public domain.
We recall how when some years ago an intruder infiltrated Buckingham Palace, details of the breach were not let out and the British media understood that and acted accordingly.
Responsible media would not let out the details of their country’s military dispositions during wartime lest the enemies gain an advantage thereof.
Media reportage about the military should in all sincerity be guided by the national interest.
The UN peacekeeping issue has attracted sufficient explanation since 2017, and for us should be spared further media wrangling as we are beginning to see, especially as the goal is to incite young soldiers. And to what end we dare ask?